THE LAST SEEN PROJECT - FINDING FAMILY : INFORMATION WANTED ORG ; A COLLECTION OF ADS BY FORMER SLAVES TO RECONNECT WITH LOVED ONES

You can get involved.

INFORMATION WANTED ORG

Excerpt: Last Seen is recovering stories of families separated in the domestic slave trade. Formerly enslaved people placed these ads hoping to reconnect with family and loved ones for decades following emancipation. The ads serve as testaments to their enduring hope and determination to regain what was taken from them. As of today, we have recovered 5020 ads.

Formerly enslaved people placed ads looking for loved ones from all over the United States and sometimes from as far away as Africa. Explore the map to see the locations of those placing ads or locations where ads appeared.

My search used the word 'Washington' and brought up ads that included an offer of $5 for information to find a wife. You can go to to the State and search newspapers from there too.

The Last Seen Project is committed to supporting the genealogical work of descendants of enslaved people. Transcribing the ads helps people today find their ancestors. You may also wish to contact us and tell us about your ancestors. Please let us know when you find an ancestor in the ads.  

(Yes there are some genealogy success stories!)

C 2026 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

LAST SEEN by JUDITH GIESBERG : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BOOK RECOMMENDATION : BLACK HISTORY - LOVE STORIES

This book is about love stories: the love of family, of partners, siblings, and children who were once enslaved, of friends and those who served in the military together seeking each other to reconnect. These people were sold away or escaped to freedom. They were gone and those who loved them wanted to know the truth. Were they alive or dead? Where were they? What had happened to them since they last saw each other?  (Had they married?  Had more children?) Could the family be reunited?

Author Judith Giesberg calls these people "The Freedom Generation."

Allow me to give you some back-story on this. As you may know, after emancipation from slavery, former enslaved people were allowed to have bank accounts and own land and property (though they were often segregated when it came to where, per localities), and also allowed to legally marry (though there were rituals of commitment and sometimes services to unite slaves, (per the slave owners values and discretion). However, in those times communications traveled slowly, very slowly compared to these days when even "snail mail" has been replaced by electronic bill paying and e-mail and unlimited long distance cell phone use. Because some slaves were sold and resold or moved along, they were often out of communication entirely. The Underground Railroad moved people to freedom. The Civil War also scattered people, including those who had been part of the military or escaped to the Union while soldiering. Upon emancipation, some had no means to move from the place they had been enslaved while others took any means possible to move elsewhere. The years passed.

You may also know about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and his New Deal which resulted in federal funds being used for projects such as the Federal Writer's Project. One of the projects that writers participated in was interviewing former slaves. These writings appear in databases as "SLAVE NARRATIVES." (At my local library this database is available and searchable.) Author Giesberg search through those testimonials as well as doing research in archives for now historical newspaper advertisements and such and brought forth some stories that might break your heart too.

Some people searched for decades, not only placing ads in newspapers but traveling and networking, asking ministers and local politicians who might be inclined to help them search. Some were successful, others not. (Through genealogy that search continues.)

In the Introduction of this book, Giesberg writes, "Tens of thousands of children were taken from their mothers and fathers over the four decades of the Second Middle Passage" and "Chance meetings of formerly enslaved people were rare."

Excerpt page 65 -

"Among the one million people sold from the Upper to the Lower South before 1860, thousands were children sold alone.  According to historian Edward Baptist, between 1815 and 1820, 2,646 children under the age of thirteen were sold in New Orleans out of a total of 12,370 sales.  Of their number 1,001 were sold alone."

Giesberg writes about the emotional and psychological effects that being sold away or sent away had on children and families as an aspect of her explorations of slavery in this book. Today, we find child trafficking and child labor to be abhorrent. I will say that that children who were not enslaved were also trafficked and many went to work both in Europe and the America's very young, especially before public education. That was tied in with shorter lifespans and the fact that the age of thirteen was generally thought to be the onset of adulthood; some say being a "teenager" is also a recent experience and back in the day you were either a child or an adult. It was also an aspect of a rural or agricultural society in which large families put everyone to work in some capacity, of informal apprenticeships, and very little time to play. So we're all evolving and rejecting notions that were acceptable in the past.

This is one more book I highly recommend for its extensive researched historical content and value to anyone who wants to be inspired.

C 2026 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

SEXIST AND RACIST - OFFENSIVE VALENTINES THAT WE HAVE TO PUT INTO HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Today I've been looking for a VALENTINE to post on this blog, sorting through the offerings that come up in Google Images when I add the words "public domain" and "Vintage" or "Old." 

I've seen Valentines that, using the usual cartoonish or highly romantic art, depict, supposedly with humor, the beating of a woman so that she will finally be the Valentine of the man who gifted her with it.  Not funny.  Not loving.

But the idea that a card giver might batter or insult a woman to get her to like him rests in sexism and attitudes towards women that have not entirely changed, very sad to say. 

I, as a writer, reader, literature major, and dogged researcher,

found this one deeply personally offensive.

The idea was that a boy giving this Valentine to a girl

didn't really want an intelligent or educated woman.

 

(MANY OF US HAVE GRANDPARENTS WHO NEVER LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE, who made their mark of an X on legal documents with a witness there as a result and many of us have parents who dropped out of high school and had to get their G.E.D. or equivalent after they served in the armed forces or got through working at anything during the Great Depression.)

This one was probably considered rather risqué back in the day

but these days with the Kardashian sisters showing off

their booties on a regular basis, we've grown numb.

I also found a few Valentines - very few - that depicted cartoonish or romantic BLACK people.  Since most of these were pretty much in line with the Valentines that depicted cartoonish or romantic WHITE people, I decided that they were not offensive.

But these two, below, did seem to be.  I had to wonder if BLACK people had found it difficult to purchase Valentines and other cards that showed people who looked like them in the stores. 



Of course, the handmade Valentine, especially the ones made by children for their parents and siblings, grandparents, cousins, and friends, are probably most endearing and a way around the offensive.  Right now kids are making Valentines in their school classrooms and at special programs staged at libraries and I'm sure that many handmade Valentines have remained cherished with all those drawings, and all the glitter glue.

This morning I was talking to a stranger about Valentines.  I told her that a couple years ago, because Valentines used to be given to friends from friends, I gave a dozen people who were perhaps more acquaintances than friends, small fun cards with a piece of good chocolate each when we had lunch together about that time.  One of the men, though he was at the table when I distributed these to one and all, unexpectedly took this small offering as a come on by me.  Just what I didn't need.

But I do remember, even if perhaps a parent or a teacher thought that every child in class should receive a Valentine from every other child in the class, the excitement of being seven years old, having a kid crush on one particular boy, and how wonderful and special it felt when his Valentine was delivered to my desk.  I recall the fun of a decorated classroom and a specially wrapped Valentine box that served as a mail box and how it was considered an honor to be picked to be the mail carrier!

C 2016  Ancestry Worship - Genealogy  All Rights Reserved.
Images are from Google Images - search for Public Domain and Vintage Valentines

FREEDMAN BANK RECORDS - AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH

This month has been designated "African-American" (or "Black") History month, so let's talk a bit about the Freedman Bank records - the database. This is the banking system (locations in very many places) where people who could for the first time own personal property went to bank. These banks did not last long - a couple years.

The original handwritten records were submitted to a database that is offered as a resource in many libraries. Using the records is as easy as submitting the surname and going from there. So far most of the names I've researched did not offer much information that I could use.

Please know that after the slaves were freed, they were allowed to choose their own name. First and Last. In some families the various members chose different surnames. Also some people tried on a surname and then changed it, just because they felt more comfortable about another name, because siblings had gotten together and decided on a name, or because they changed their mind about keeping the name of a plantation or master.

WHAT THIS MEANS IS that as your research progresses and your knowledge of family names progresses, you may wish to check the records again and again. I use the census and other records to try and establish a location with a name.

Also, some White people did put their money into a Freedman's Bank! I don't know why, maybe just the convenience of a location. Maybe because they were living with African-Americans.

(See my previous blogs on Henry Louis Gates!)